Coming Soon To A Store Near You: Remote-control Cockroaches

March 8, 2011 by Mike Nathan 36 Comments

roboroach

Given a box full of cockroaches, the first thing most of us would do is try to locate the nearest source of fire. Lucky for the roaches, the team over at Backyard Brains look at things a bit differently than we do.

Their latest effort combines cockroaches and electronics to create a bio-electrical hybrid known as the RoboRoach. Using control circuitry donated from a HexBug inchworm and some 555 timers to create properly timed pulses, they have been able to control the gross movement of cockroaches. Stimulation is directly delivered to the antennae nerves of the cockroaches, enabling them to tell the roach which direction to turn and when.

Currently there are some ahem, bugs in the system, which they are working diligently to resolve. Only about 25% of the roaches they wire up can be controlled at present. Once that ratio improves however, they will be looking to offer RoboRoach as a beta product. If you are aiming to add a beetle air force to supplement your remote-controlled cockroach army, be sure to check this out.

Continue reading to see a video of the RoboRoach in action.

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How Escher’s Impossible Waterfall Was Faked

March 3, 2011 by Mike Szczys 46 Comments

Study the image above closely. You’ll notice that physically it is an impossible object, yet this is a screenshot of full-motion video. The clip after the break shows a gentleman pouring water into the waterfall where the wheel is located. The liquid flows in a direction that appears to be uphill, then falls onto the waterwheel where it was originally poured. Ladies and Gentleman, we have the solution to the world’s energy crisis. Nope, we have a hoax and the real question is how was it done?

[David Goldman] has come up with quite the explanation. He watched the video very closely and the put together a three-dimensional diagram showing how he would build the apparatus. If you saw the movie Inception (we highly recommend you do) you will remember the infinite stair puzzle that is exposed as an optical illusion. [David’s] proposed method for debunking this hoax uses a similar build that comes in four different, precisely placed elements.

We’ve got to hand it to him. That’s a brilliant theory! Of course the first commenter on the post linked above calls this out as CGI and we’re inclined to go with that answer but that’s much less fun.

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Cutting Out Your Own Breakout Boards

March 3, 2011 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

[Caleb] needed to use some surface mount components when prototyping. Instead of buy a breakout board he made one himself without doing any etching. The process he shows off in the video after the break uses copper tape to layout the traces for the board. It’s quite an interesting method which requires a sharp knife and a steady hand.

He used regular protoboard as a substrate and applied a layer of copper tape on the side without copper pads. From there he poked holes for the DIP pin headers. Now it’s time to do some cutting. [Caleb] removed the band of copper that would fall in between the pins of the surface mount device. He then tacked it in place with one dot of solder and drew the traces from the part to the pin headers. After removing the part he cut out the waste in between each line he drew with marker. What he’s left with is a set of thin traces that connect each pin of the surface mount component to the corresponding through-hole pin header.

This is very time-consuming, but then again so is soldering jumper wires to small-pitch components.

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Pint-sized Nixie Display Fits Neatly In Your Pocket

March 2, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

[Brett] has had Nixie tubes on the brain ever since being introduced to them by a good friend of his. He decided that building a Nixie-based key chain would be the best way to familiarize himself with the technology, while also giving him a project to enter in the 555 Design Contest. He dug up the smallest Nixie tube he could find that displayed digits, and got down to business.

The biggest obstacle he ran into was figuring out how he would provide the high voltage required to light the Nixie tube. He eventually built a transformer circuit driven by a 555 timer, using a small 12v battery as his power source. Once everything was up and running on a breadboard, he designed and etched some PCBs, then soldered everything together.

The end result is a nifty little key chain that flashes the number 5 when a button is pressed – pretty appropriate for the 555 contest. It’s a great looking project, though we’re still not 100% sure what we think about a naked high voltage circuit residing in our pocket.

Keep reading for a pair of videos documenting the key chain’s construction and operation.

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Fly Like Superman Using The Force

March 1, 2011 by Mike Nathan 20 Comments

infinity_simulator

At one point or another, who hasn’t had a dream in which you could fly, simply by thinking about it? [Yehuda Duenyas, aka XXXY] is currently working on a project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute which can allow you to do just that.

As part of a thesis project dubbed the “Infinity Simulator“, he has constructed a system that allows people to fly about using the elaborate rigging system at RPI’s Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. His project allows users to glide through the air, walk up walls, and otherwise live out their flying fantasies, with mere thoughts.

An EEG headset is placed on the user, along with other wearable sensors which enhance the audio and visual experience of the person in flight. With enough concentration, the rigging system sweeps people off their feet, sending them soaring anywhere their mind desires. It sounds a bit like pretending to be Superman while using The Force to us, however the installation is described on the EMPAC web site as a “live-action stunt show crossed with a video game.” Either way, sign us up!

Hopefully we will see some video of the completed project in the near future, but in the meantime keep reading to see a behind-the-scenes preview of the flying rig in action.

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Let There Be Cake – And Video Games In One Package

March 1, 2011 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

Encourage your kids to play with their food by making a cake that looks like a toy. The Nintendo DS lookalike houses some electronics to spruce up the presentation. The upper panel is cardboard covered in frosting to tie it in with the edible lower sections. That cardboard panel hides a couple of LEDs that blink thanks to a blinking Christmas light bulb in series with the diodes. There is also an LCD screen backlight in the form of to CCFL bulbs. The screen is just a still image but that’s okay, you can’t expect an actual video screen to be built into this. Take a look at the clip after the break to see the internals.

We’ve looked in on a few other cake hacks in the past. If you missed them before now’s your chance to revisit the gantry-based frosting dispenser and the turn-table frosting injector with silver-orb detailing. These are some sweet hacks!

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Web-enabling Your Smoke Breaks

February 28, 2011 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

If you’re going to freeze your butt off smoking in the middle of winter you might was well have company while you’re out there. [Zach’s] company wanted to crunch some data about smoking breaks and worker productivity. Instead of just meeting the bland data collection needs he decided to add functionality.

He took time to explain the different parts of the system. Above you can see the web interface that lets you know which of your coworkers are smoking right now. It also lets you click to check in and out from your breaks. After this was up and running he found that often the smokers forgot to ‘clock out’ before a break. As a backup system he build a physical interface on the way out of the office. Each smoker has their own button with a corresponding LED. If the light’s on you’re having a break and when it’s off you’re working. This controller is Arduino based and uses a Perl script to monitor the input and sync both that physical display and the web interface. [Zach] posted a few pictures if you want to take a look at the rest of the system.